


Three Bullets, Three Days

by ElleWinter



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Action & Romance, Blood and Violence, Drama & Romance, Gen, Psychological Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 22:01:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20298619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElleWinter/pseuds/ElleWinter
Summary: Kirk is having a lazy, indulgent day in their balcony garden with his lover, Anne Hardesty-- but it turns into a rare story from Anne's past.A Walking Wounded side story.Complete.





	Three Bullets, Three Days

He’d thought it a little bit silly when Anne had said she wanted to have a picnic on the balcony, but Kirk soon came around when she’d pretended a pout and said, “But if we leave the apartment, we have to put on clothes.” At that, he had to admit she had a very good point. And if, against all odds, someone heard them indulging themselves on the blanket Anne had spread out on the light-baked brick of their balcony… who cared? She didn’t, and neither did he.  


On impulse, he reached above his head, gently tweaking one of those pretty rose-colored nipples just above his face. As if waking, she roused from her stillness and whatever deep thoughts she’d been thinking to smile at him, catching his hand and bringing it up to press a kiss against his knuckles. He was sort of surprised she hadn’t told him to move yet, but she seemed quite content to stay where she was, his head pillowed on her thighs. It was… nice. It wasn’t the kind of thing he’d done with anyone else-- not like this, not with the sun (well, the light, whatever) and the blanket and the remnants of their meal nearby to pick at, the breeze playing though the garden leaves and the two of them naked in that comfortable, rustling silence. Lowering his hand to rest on his chest, Anne then began to run her fingers through his hair, slow and repetitive and soothing. He could fall asleep this way. Hell, it might be the best sleep he’d ever get. Certainly it would be the most decadent.

He’d almost started to drift off when he heard her say softly, “Once upon a time…”

At first he wasn’t sure if she realized she’d spoken aloud. Her fingers kept moving, not speeding up, not slowing, and her eyes remained faraway. But after a few moments, she took a deep breath-- one that had some very intriguing effects on the high, small breasts near his face-- and spoke again. “Once upon a time, there was a young woman who lived alone in the mountains. Winter had come, and she was isolated, cut off from the real world, just her and her two horses.” Anne smiled. “Sartre, a black and white stallion, and Simone, a blue roan. The three of them had supplies to last them; they had enough to eat, and the deep snow outside at least meant that they would never lack for water. There was enough firewood stacked at the side of the woman’s little cabin that they wouldn’t have to worry about cutting more until spring. The woman thought she was prepared well… but as with all stories, if she was prepared as well as she thought, there would be nothing left to tell.”

It wasn’t until then that she looked down, curious to see his reaction. Kirk thought about speaking, but didn’t want to risk stopping her. Instead he watched her, waiting, giving her an encouraging little smile when she didn’t continue right away. Her eyes warmed, though she didn’t smile back. “The wind howls in the mountains. We say that it does in cities, but until you’ve been caught in a mountain snowstorm, you can’t imagine it. Snow piled up deeper and deeper, until the path between the little cottage and the stable was more like a tunnel. The horses were safe in the stable, and when the last satellite link was severed and the three of them were completely alone, the woman took comfort that she knew their heat would stay on and they had enough food, and prepared herself for a long nap. Perhaps when she woke, the storm would be over.

“But the howling of the wind became… something different. At first, it was easy to dismiss, but soon enough it grew louder. It sounded of screams… but higher and wilder, a sound that the woman had never thought to hear and would have been happy never to know the difference between recordings and reality.”

Mountain lion. Kirk knew the piercing calls she described, and in a snowstorm, the creature would be desperate. He couldn’t help seeing the scene in his mind’s eye-- a younger Anne, her hair not yet silver, dousing all the lamps and candles in the rough wooden cottage, trying to keep her calm while the creature circled outside. Against all sense, he suddenly felt worried for her, as if somehow the story might turn out differently this time and Anne would evaporate away, leaving him lying on the blanket on an empty balcony.

“Everything was fine until she heard the horses screaming,” Anne mused. “But no matter how she tried to convince herself that it was better for them to die and her to live, she couldn’t make herself believe it. So in the middle of the storm, she took her pistol and her rifle, covered herself up well, and made for the stable.

“It was harder than it should have been to find it. The scouring wind had worn away parts of her path and built up others so that it was near unrecognizable. Only after she was sure she was halfway there did she recall that one was supposed to tie a rope to the doorhandle, to make sure one could find their way back to the house. By then, it was too late. The beast’s screams were between her and the house. There was nothing to do but dash toward the stable where she could still hear both horses’ cries of alarm, and hope that she made it through the blinding snow with the beast behind her.”

She fell silent for a while, her eyes faraway and dark with remembrance. He couldn’t help but recognize the memory of that desperation, a feeling he’d faced more than once in his travels… but he also knew not to dwell on it, if possible. Brooding changed nothing. After a few moments, Kirk softly asked, “What happened then?” 

His question shook her out of her momentary stillness; she looked down at him, her eyes placid and sad, and began to run her fingers through his hair again. “The beast took her from behind just as she reached the stable doors. It knocked her down into the snow, but its claws had caught in the thick coat she wore and never pierced her skin. The woman tore loose of her coat, the rifle strap tangling in the thing’s jaws above her. In the scuffle she rolled onto her back, and the beast shook her rifle aside and lunged down for her face.” Her eyes were as remote and dark and wintry as the mountains she described, but her hand continued to move, the soothing feel of her fingers sitting oddly against the memory of the struggle. “Three bullets, fired from the revolver. As the thing’s teeth flashed toward her face, the woman desperately shoved the barrel of her revolver against the the bottom of it’s jaw and shot blindly. Luck was on her side. The beast collapsed atop her, dead, the wounds in its skull pouring blood.”

It was too easy to picture it, the huge cat slumping over Anne’s tiny body, blood freezing already in the blisteringly cold wind. Her scramble to get out from underneath it, the way adrenaline would have made her hands shaky and her breath quick gasps. Without thinking, he reached up and caught her free hand, pressing it to his lips. He could see the too-quick pulse in her throat, regardless of her calm expression.

The gesture melted some of her cold reserve, a small smile peeking through like a flower through melting snow. Her fingers traced his lips, his cheek, his eyebrow, while her other hand still stroked his hair. “Knowing the storm was too heavy to find her way back to the house, the woman left her bloodsoaked coat where it was, collecting the rifle and prying open the door to the stable. The horses’ eyes showed white, and they reared and whinnied in their stalls, but the woman cleaned off the blood as best she could and once it was gone they calmed, recognizing her scent. Simone was the first to calm, pressing her warm, whiskered nose against the woman’s body and inspecting her for any hurt. Sartre soon followed. The woman slept that night in the stable, in a large stall with her horses near her for warmth, one of their blankets pulled over her. The storm lasted three days.” Anne suddenly laughed. “Oats get very boring to eat by the second day.”

Kirk could imagine; he’d been stuck in similar situations, where he had to make a ration stretch longer than it should, or eat things that maybe weren’t necessarily food. For a gourmet like Anne, that must have been even more awful.

But she was speaking already before he could say anything about it. “When the storm cleared, the woman went out to see what she had done. The beast’s body had frozen where it lay, blood in the snow, frost blinding its dead eyes. And by the time she saw it was a nursing mother, she was already apologizing, over and over, her heart broken by what she’d had to do. It had been a beautiful thing.”

Kirk couldn’t stop himself. “Hmph,” he said, frowning a little. “Shouldn’t have messed with my tiger.”

That surprised a laugh from Anne, her guilt fading into a sort of humorous resignation. “You’re too perfect, mon cher.” The pensive stillness left her with that, and her grey eyes cleared of storm. “The mother’s hide is in storage; I bring it out when I’m writing. The cubs were found and transported to a conservation once I called it in. I get pictures of them from time to time.” She shrugged. “The horses are still on one of my properties, getting fat on oats.”

“And they lived happily ever after,” Kirk said. The story couldn’t end any other way, not now.

“Yes,” Anne said, her smile turning crooked as she looked down at him. “They did.”

As much as he would have liked to stay where he was, Kirk wanted her in his arms more. It always felt like she was on the point of vanishing somehow, and he wanted her close while she was here. “Come here, tiger,” he said, shifting aside. Anne came willingly down to him, her small body fitting easily against his, warming under the sunlight and his touch, all the cold chased away. In the whispering, rustling stillness of their warm little retreat, it was easy to keep the cold at a distance. Memories were just memories; now was the only ever after they had.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make this scene fit into the main story, but I just couldn't make it work! So I polished it up as a little side story. An apology for the recent delays in posting <3


End file.
